


Ill-Gotten Goods

by crookedmouth



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bondage and Discipline, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hopefully Still Funny?, How the hell has nobody written a backstory for this yet?, M/M, Tarrlok's Very Dubious and Uninformed Consent, The Cage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedmouth/pseuds/crookedmouth
Summary: At the end of the day, it’s just not the sort of thing one can buy from the Little Ba Sing Se Fashion Mall. He’ll have to arrange for it specially, and that comes with its own host of problems.Alternatively:How Republic City's favourite cagey councilman gets, well, the cage.
Relationships: Tarrlok/Various
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Ill-Gotten Goods

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so, the fact that Tarrlok conveniently had a metal cage to shove Korra into has always struck me as wildly in need of explanation. Did he build it himself? Bribe a metalbender? How did he get it all the way down into the basement? When did he decide he needed such a contraption in the first place?   
> Given that I'm not likely to get my much needed answers from Bryke, I'm going to run with my own version of events. Featuring Vanilla!Tarrlok, because otherwise it wouldn't be half as funny.

At the end of the day, it’s just not the sort of thing one can buy from the Little Ba Sing Se Fashion Mall. He’ll have to arrange for it specially, and that comes with its own host of problems.

There’s a cost to anything custom-built – which he is prepared for – but the price of discretion varies greatly from person to person, and on that point he is adamantly opposed to negotiation. Tarrlok needs someone who can do the job, but also needs someone who won’t ask too many questions and who can be trusted to keep their mouth shut once they are done.

So he goes to one of the few remaining places where client confidentiality still means something – Yen Chā’s.

Officially, it is one of Republic City’s largest jazz houses, and – if the advertisements are to be believed – home of Shiro Shinobi’s own favourite cocktail, the shirshu shooter. Unofficially, it’s a vice club that caters to those of a more _intense_ persuasion.

Tarrlok knows of it as the former by virtue of being an avid radio-listener. His knowledge of it as the latter has come about as part of his work with the council. He has personally stymied several of Yen Chā’s building and business permits in an attempt to scrub it from Republic City’s underbelly. To purge his home of one more bastion of sin that he cannot help but associate with his father.

He knows, of course, that Yakone could never have frequented the place – he entered exile long before the club even existed – but it nonetheless strikes Tarrlok as a place the man would have enjoyed, and he can’t help but hate it as a result.

Not that he has been terribly successful in its eradication. The club’s namesake and proprietor is tenaciously by-the-books when it comes to paperwork and regulations, weaving through all of Tarrlok’s red tape and loopholes with such unyielding diligence he has ultimately been forced to renege on every meddlesome roadblock he’s set before her.

It’s no wonder, he thinks, that her patrons have taken to calling her Madame Winter.

He arrives in the late afternoon – but still during regular business hours – dressed in his usual attire, a manilla envelope casually tucked beneath one arm. Should any prying member of the press catch sight of him, he can easily explain away his presence as a matter of council business. Attempting to be inconspicuous, such as by altering his appearance, would only seem suspicious and he _cannot_ allow for this to be the subject of any headlines.

After requesting an audience with the madame, Tarrlok is guided to an office by a young woman who has not only shaved her head, but both of her eyebrows. Apart from this, however, she is disarmingly… normal.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she advises him while gesturing to a plush chair.

Tarrlok does so, fanning out the long hem of his jacket before sitting. The young woman places a delicate teacup before him, steaming, and then departs through a different door than the one they entered through. 

He folds one long leg over the other, hoping to appear completely at ease when the proprietor walks in, as though he isn’t about to make the most outrageous request in his life.

Except, she doesn’t come. Not right away, at least, and so Tarrlok sits – alternating his crossed legs as the position grows uncomfortable – and watches as the steam rising from the teacup dwindles. After several restless minutes, he realizes that there is a noise leaking into the office from a neighbouring room. At first he had mistaken it for footsteps, but the rhythmic thump did not dissipate as it would have were it a pair of boots passing by in the hall.

Tarrlok twists in the chair, angling his ear closer to the sound in confusion. Is somebody… knocking?

He’s almost up out of the chair to investigate before he realizes that, no, the regular beat behind the wall is not being caused by a set of knuckles. It’s the result of a piece of furniture – a headboard or desk, perhaps – being jolted repeatedly by something substantial. Tarrlok can feel a faint hint of warmth creeping up his neck, and it reaches his cheeks with a burn once the rhythmic knocking is joined by a hoarse but all-too-audible moan.

Just as he is beginning to think he has made a terrible mistake by coming here, the door behind the desk is swung open with surprising force, and he finds himself facing Yen Chā for the first time. For all the aggravated phone-calls and paperwork between them, he has never actually seen the woman before.

“Councilman,” she greets him coolly, “to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company? This had better not be about my liquor license, again. The necessary forms were submitted weeks ago.”

Tarrlok attempts to clear his throat, but it comes out as a self-conscious cough. He can still hear the noises coming from the next room and finds himself struggling to drown it out, even with the sound of his own voice.

“Ah, no, actually,” he tells her, watching as one eyebrow arches disdainfully, “I’ve come on business that’s a little more… _personal_ , shall we say?”

She makes a noncommittal noise and eases into the chair behind her desk, while Tarrlok tries very hard not to let his eyes linger too long on the strange leather harness over her dress, blatantly accentuating her breasts through the black fabric. He looks up to find her eyeing him expectantly, and he slides the envelope across the desk hastily. The hand that accepts it is viciously manicured, nails sharp and painted a rich shade of evergreen that immediately calls to mind Chief Beifong.

Tarrlok suspects, were Lin herself not so firmly on the side of order, that she might get along very well with the madame.

The noise from their neighbours gets louder, the moans joining the thump of furniture incessantly, punctuated occasionally by single syllable words – yes! more! _fuck!_ – and Tarrlok finds himself wondering if Yen Chā is purposefully keeping quiet so that he has to stew in their uncomfortable not-silence.

She glances over the sketches in the envelope, hums appraisingly.

“My _my_ , councilman,” she leers up at him, the force of her eye-contact sending an unexpected tightness to his stomach, “I would have never guessed.”

He is altogether too aware of the sweat starting to bead on the back of his neck as he shrugs nonchalantly, hoping to affect an air of confident indifference.

“What can I say, I’m a man of unconventional taste.”

The woman smiles, leaning back in her chair as though to get a better look at him. Tarrlok gives the oiliest, most self-assured grin he can muster in return, but it falls from his face as soon as she begins to chuckle darkly.

“Oh, I doubt that.”

Yen Chā has been called a lot of things in her life, but _shrewd_ is by far the most accurate title, and she reckons that a person with even half of her perspicacity would have no trouble seeing that Councilman Tarrlok is among one of the tamest bedmates in all of Republic City.

 _This is a man who has absolutely no idea what to do with another person’s ass, let alone his own,_ she thinks to herself as she drags her eyes pointedly down his body. The councilman shifts beneath her gaze, and despite her dislike of him, she cannot help but be curious.

“Look,” she says, her voice taking on a serious tone, “I have an artist who is more than capable of constructing this… project. And normally in my business, there are no questions and no judgments – ”

Tarrlok almost deflates in relief, until he realizes that there is a caveat coming.

“— but I must admit that receiving such a request from you seems _disingenuous_ at best, given our history and what I know you think of my establishment.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but the noise from the neighbouring room is reaching a crescendo, the moans having coalesced into wanton grunts and shouts, the wall sounding as though it might be broken through at any moment with the force of the couple’s thrusts.

Yen Chā continues undeterred.

“I have to assume that you’ve come to me because your reasons for wanting this contraption are not so easy to explain to the average blacksmith or metalbender, and they may jump to damaging conclusions. All of which wouldn’t matter, if I had any reason to believe that your sex-life was actually interesting enough to warrant such a purchase.”

Tarrlok has enough presence of mind to look appropriately offended at this slight, once again trying to summon his voice in protest, but the madame refuses to cede him the floor.

“I am in the business of discretion, councilman, which I’ve established as your reason for being here. Congratulations on being clever enough to think of us.” She tilts her head condescendingly. “But my business also rests on the foundations of sanity, safety, and consent, and I need some assurance from you that _this_ ,” she gestures to the pages, “is in adherence with such a policy.”

Yen Chā knows just how thin the line between pleasure and pain can be, knows how fear can feed excitement, and she knows exactly when that line has been crossed. It’s not something she has to deal with often at the club, thankfully, but there have been a few incidences, and she has approached them with the seriousness of death. Councilman Tarrlok does not strike her as a sadistic man – manipulative and unscrupulous, certainly – and his awkwardness about the whole affair suggests that he doesn’t have the stomach for anything much beyond that, but still. She will not be involved in anything that may cause genuine harm or distress.

Next door, someone climaxes explosively, followed by the sound of applause and a third, previously-unheard person’s laughter.

Tarrlok can’t help but turn his head at the sound. Had… had somebody been _watching_ that?

“Councilman,” the madame’s tone draws him back, her pointed nails drumming expectantly against the surface of her desk. He swallows.

“I – uh – assume you’re looking for something other than my word of honour?”

He’s beginning to feel like a cornered animal, and that always draws out the worst of him. It doesn’t help that this woman has somehow managed to see through him completely. The whole point of having a mortifying, sexually deviant alibi was to avoid sharing the much less palatable truth, and yet here she is, trying to squeeze it out of him. _Like she’s in any position to judge_.

Of course, he’s rather stuck, now. She’s seen the sketches, knows what it is he wants, even if she doesn’t quite believe what he’s telling her he wants it for. It’s information easily held over his head, and very easily misconstrued. Much as he has come prepared to pay for privacy, he is neither ready nor willing to become the subject of blackmail.

Maybe if he hadn’t given Yen Chā such a hard time about her various permits this wouldn’t be such a problem.

The door behind her desk opens and the young woman from before enters gleefully, naked except for another black harness, and Tarrlok can see – before he averts his eyes and shields them beneath an embarrassed hand – that her head isn’t the only part of her body that she has shaved. 

“Well! That was _quite_ the performance,” she exudes before noticing him. “Oh. He’s still here.”

Yen Chā smirks at her assistant, gesturing for her to close the door. She takes note of Tarrlok’s furiously flushing face, the way he’s angling his body away from the young woman, the impossibly tight line of his lips.

 _Fine, you idiot_ , she thinks, _keep your secrets. Anyone who still blushes that hard at your age can’t possibly be up to_ that _much mischief._

She’s still going to charge him – exorbitantly, in fact – for the purchase, but now that she knows how easily he can be riled, Yen Chā sees this arrangement as a potentially educational one, in addition to being profitable.

“Your word will have to do for now, councilman,” she says icily, “But I’ll have you come by tomorrow night to go over the terms of our agreement. Just confirmation of details – payment, dimensions, delivery, et cetera.” 

Tarrlok drops his hand from his eyes and comes to stare at her, almost wide-eyed in disbelief. For a Water Tribe man, he looks surprisingly good that shade of red.

“Th-thank you!” he exclaims, moving to extend his hand across the desk and clasp her own. Yen Chā shakes her head, however.

“We’ll seal the deal properly after our discussion tomorrow. In the meantime, my assistant will escort you out.”

Tarrlok forgets himself, gaping first at Yen Chā and then at her assistant, whose thighs are visibly damp and emanating a soft, salty smell. The young woman smiles congenially, and grabs him by the arm.

She’ll need to keep a tight grip, Yen Chā muses, noting how the councilman’s eyes determinedly fix themselves to the floor.

_Oh Tarrlok, whatever are we going to do with you?_

_Or rather, what aren't we?_


End file.
